The countess winced at the suggestion, and her face crimsoned. If Government chose to establish a bureau of paid informers, who were dubbed the Battalion of Testimony, it was no affair of hers, though she could not approve the principle; but as to becoming one herself, the bare idea was an audacious insult. The chancellor laughed airily as she turned on him, for he expected some such ebullition of feeling, and waited a little while ere he proceeded. Then, like the serpent luring Eve, he strove to decide her with specious arguments. He showed that, by helping to circumvent their plans, she might do signal service against the Catholics; that both her brother and eldest son might be made to benefit indirectly by her acts, and that nobody would know anything of what she had done. In love and war all means are fair. The girl had no excuse for the line she chose to take. It was right and fitting that the lower orders should be cowed; that the Papists should be stamped down into the serfdom from which in their insolence they struggled to escape; that this Tone, whom people had liked till he took up the cudgels of Antichrist, should be brought to punishment. These were good reasons--strong enough surely to decide my lady. If she wanted another, let her think of Gillin and her 'Irish Slave.' It would be strange if that hateful enemy could not be mixed in the coming struggle, and crushed in the downfall of the conspirators. This last stroke almost settled the resolve of the wavering countess, whose mental mirror had been blurred by long dabbling in questionable waters, which, rising in her husband's throat to choking, had wrung that last cry from him before he died. It would be delightful to discomfit Gillin. It would be odd, too, if Doreen, in the contrition which follows upon being found out, did not throw herself on her aunt's mercy, and joyfully do as she was told, on condition of being saved. After meditating awhile, my lady said she would think about it; and Lord Clare, having planted his arrow, rode back to town, satisfied that he had gained his end.